“All right then!” Curly nodded. “Let it be known that whoever is the winner of this battle royale is the rightful owner and mate of this female.” Here, he pointed to me. “To do with as he wishes, for the rest of her natural life,” he added. “Now let the fighting commence! That means go—fight!” he added, when several of the contestants looked confused.
Well, it commenced, all right. In the blink of an eye, the entire center of the clearing was a brawling, bloody mess. I stood there, my hands clenched into fists and watched as men I didn’t even know punched and hit and kicked and gouged each other—all for the pleasure of having me to do whatever they wanted. If this was the Were world, I didn’t want any part of it! It was sexist and disgusting and I hadn’t missed a thing by being raised in the human world, I decided.
It didn’t take long for some of the men to drop like flies. None of them were a match for Mr. Mustache or Dragon Tattoo guy—well, except for Anubis. Despite wearing the mask which should have restricted his vision, he seemed to be able to see around corners or something. Every time someone threw a punch at him, he ducked easily out of the way. And the punches he threw himself were landing with deadly precision. I’m not saying he never got hit or kicked at all—he took a few blows—but fewer than most of the other men and the one time he got knocked down, he jumped right back up again.
Mr. Mustache and Dragon Tattoo guy seemed to realize that Anubis was an actual threat, because I saw them stop what they were doing and nod at each other. Wait—what was going on, I wondered? Weren’t the two of them rivals?
Apparently not—or not at the moment, anyway. I gasped as I saw Dragon Tattoo sneak up behind Anubis while he was busy with another contestant and grab him by his muscular arms. As soon as he had Anubis’s arms pinned behind his back, Mr. Mustache landed a solid punch to the masked contestant’s midsection.
Well, it must have been like punching iron because Mr. Mustache made a face and grabbed for his wrist. Holding his hand up in front of him, he let out a low groan—it appeared to be broken.
“What the fuck?” Dragon Tattoo demanded, speaking to Mr. Mustache.
“Think he broke my fuckin’ hand!” Mr. Mustache answered. “What the Hell?”
“Hey, what did you do?” Dragon Tattoo snarled, gripping Anubis more tightly.
Anubis didn’t waste time talking. He simply rammed one foot backwards, into Dragon Tattoo’s knee. There was a sickening crunching sound I could hear from the stage and then the big Were’s knee was bending backwards in a way that looked extremely unnatural. He groaned and fell over, clutching at the misshapen joint.
“My knee! Holy shit, my fuckin’ knee!” he wailed.
The rest of the contestants—there were only three left now—had started to take notice. They stopped fighting each other and stood there staring warily at Anubis.
“What the fuck are you?” I heard one of them mutter.
“The winner of this match—unless you’d like to go some more?” Anubis took a threatening step forward and the three of them scattered. He turned back to the stage, stepping over the bodies of the fallen men, headed straight for me.
He was the winner and I was his prize.
THIRTY-NINE
I felt like someone had dumped an entire bucket of ice cubes into the pit of my stomach. Who or what was behind that Anubis mask? What man was strong enough to incapacitate so many others with hardly any apparent effort?
As Anubis climbed the steps to the stage, I had a bad feeling I was about to find out. He was so tall, with a broad chest and shoulders and big, strong-looking hands. But it was the mask I was mainly focused on—the muzzle had been molded so it appeared to be snarling and the black, pointed ears reminded me of a Doberman Pinscher. The way he was stalking towards me, so silent and menacing, was damn scary too.
“I claim this female,” he said, in a voice that was low and distorted by the material of the mask. “This Omega will be my mate and I will care for her all the days of our lives.”
“Well…” Curly didn’t seem too happy about this, but it was clear that Anubis had won the battle royale fair and square. “I guess—” he began.
And that was when I saw my chance and grabbed his gun out of the holster at his side.
“Not another step,” I said, pointing it at Anubis’s broad chest.
Anubis held up his hands and Curly stood there gaping like a fish, clearly befuddled by my unexpected actions.
“You’re mine,” Anubis said to me. “Come with me—you won’t be sorry.”